A quick stroll down Knutsford Boulevard these days will lead one to notice that something is afoot in New Kingston.

Home to four of the most popular hotels for business and leisure travellers, New Kingston is the business, nightlife and hospitality hub of Jamaica’s capital city which, according to Jamaica Tourist Board statistics, receives approximately 230,000 visitors per year, the majority being business travellers.

Over the years, New Kingston has seen an ebb and flow of activity as a popular location for restaurants and nightclubs catering to both local and foreign crowds, to battling issues with petty crime and indigence.

But the vista of cranes in the landscape and new, swanky billboards mounted just in the last year alone reflect what is an influx of over US$200 million worth of investments in the area to date.

To the west on Renfrew Road, a mere seven months since breaking ground, the Evan Williams-designed, Joe Bogdanovich-backed Renfrew Hotel now looks to completion ahead of the projected October 2017 date.

Only the second hotel in recent times to be built from the ground up in Kingston, the property is a collection of 40 four-star luxury rooms, offering full-service corporate amenities and a shared ownership extended stay model, with rates starting at US$135,000 for studio units and the two-bedroom duplex units topping out at US$330,000.

Williams has had a long business relationship with New Kingston, as the proprietor of upscale restaurant and live performance venue Redbones — which has occupied two locations in the area over the past 20 years — as well as maintaining his architectural practice in the financial district for the past 40 years.

The Renfrew, he noted, was designed to cater to a business travel niche he observed was previously unexplored in the area. “Unlike the traditional hotels in the area, the Pegasus etc, this project is a corporate business hotel with four-star rooms… it’s a specific market we are after… geared to the business traveller who expects high-tech amenities associated with this type of facility,” Williams explained.

Heading south, across from the recently refurbished tennis-centred, members only watering hole The Liguanea Club, concrete bricks and mortar indicate that the first phase of hotelier Kevin Hendrickson’s plan to refurbish the Wyndham Kingston hotel, which he purchased in 2014, is well underway.

Hendrickson’s plan is outlined as three phases of development that will see the seasoned hotelier connect this with the two neighbouring properties under his control — The Courtleigh and the Jamaica Pegasus.

This first phase alone has a budget of between US$35 million and US$45 million.

Around the corner, on Dominica Drive, long-time corporate office building The Towers was purchased for $1 billion by Victoria Mutual Wealth Management Unit Trust Property Fund as a ‘value added’ for its unit trust portfolio.

And if one was to widen the neighbourhood borders a tiny bit further, just behind Emancipation Park, beyond the intersection of Oxford and Half-Way-Tree roads, at the General Accident-fronted complex, plans are underway by parent company Musson Jamaica Ltd to house a profitable BPO office hub.

To the north-east of the area, at the foot of Lady Musgrave Road, hotelier and ATL Group Deputy Chairman and CEO Adam Stewart earlier this year broke ground on a US$50-million project reflecting a partnership between Sandals Resorts International, ATL Automotive — the official importer of BMW and MINI in the Caribbean, and Marriott International.

The complex is to feature a 32,000 square foot showroom and service centre for BMW and MINI as well as lifestyle brand hotel AC by Marriott, and 10,000 square foot conference facility.

This marks the first European Plan property built by the Sandals group and its first built partnership with another major hotel chain.

Stewart noted the hotel will offer six restaurants, a coffee franchise, a pasta and pizzeria section, a bar, a salon, and a rent-a-car facility.

At a ceremony including notable guests such as Prime Minister Andrew Holness, Stewart told the audience “This continues to be a signal from our group as to how much confidence we have in this country and where this country is going overall.”

In keeping with that confidence and commitment, smack in the middle of Knutsford Boulevard itself, Stewart’s ATL Automotive has opened the new location for its Porsche Jamaica showroom.

“The fact is, there are a lot of places we could have chosen for this showroom, including our own site on Oxford Road, but we chose Knutsford Boulevard to make a statement.

I consider Knutsford Boulevard to be Jamaica’s ‘5th Avenue’; high footfall, huge volume of passing traffic, and at the absolute heart of Kingston’s financial district,” said Stewart, who is also deputy chairman and CEO of this newspaper.

“We felt that delivering this standard of luxury right here would add even more appeal to the area and the automotive industry as a whole. We’ve always said we’re always looking to do things differently and do whatever it takes to raise standards every single day of life.

By default, the higher you push the boundaries at the top end of the market, you raise everything else below and suddenly everyone is looking to innovate — whether you’re selling cars, hotel rooms or loaves of bread,” he added.

In keeping with the stringent guidelines from parent company Porsche AG, the six-car showroom is built to spare no expense, with luxury details such as Austrian light fixtures, Italian porcelain stoneware and soft leather finishes, with espresso on hand for prospective buyers.

“Porsche is no ordinary brand, and we weren’t looking to create an ordinary showroom. We wanted to create a space that was highly innovative and completely unique to the Jamaican market, a ‘city’-style showroom with massive kerb appeal that deviated from the perceived norm of stand-alone car showrooms,” said Stewart.

“When you walk into the Porsche City Centre in Kingston, you’ll find a space on par with the highest standards everywhere in the world, from London to Beijing. It was designed and created in just six months using our own, 50- strong Jamaican construction team alongside the architects and design experts from Porsche Automotive Group in Germany and the US,” he said. “We used the finest materials from home and abroad and it is just a simply stunning environment.

The experience will be like none other. It takes the experience of buying a car to a whole new level. Porsche is all about individuality — no two Porsches in Jamaica will be the same, each uniquely different, and the showroom reflects that.

For example, it boasts a ‘fitting room’ where a client personally touches and selects everything from the gear stick to the colour of the stitching in the seats.

The same will be true for the Porsche Centre in Montego Bay in the coming months, it will represent the finest in sales, after sales and customer service,” Stewart added.

The investment in the area is not limited to the showroom either, as ATL Automotive Group Marketing Director Stephen Hector hinted at future plans for a partnership with the Cannonball Café in the courtyard to the rear of the showroom, broadening the brand’s footprint in and commitment to sprucing up the area.

Bullish moves like these by the private sector reflect a marked increase in the business and consumer confidence highlighted in the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce’s 2016 Business and Consumer Confidence report.

Chamber of Commerce President Larry Watson confirmed that “… compared to the same period a year earlier, the data reflect the highest recorded increase in 15 years of the survey at 15 per cent, and shows overall stable optimism; a record number of investment plans and a record favourable financial outlook and expectations of profit and continued growth…. [In particular], vehicle-buying intentions were recorded at 20 per cent, up from 16 per cent”.

Following the announcement of the budget, and the Caribbean Policy Research Institute’s public analysis of the new measures proposed, the Jamaica Observer approached economist Damien King for his take on this sprightly economic outlook: “Beginning five years ago and now encompassing successive administrations, the Government has been tackling some of the country’s serious challenges,” he said.

“This is particularly true of perhaps the greatest hurdle for the last several years — managing the enormous debt. Better fiscal management, by way of adhering to strict fiscal targets, has allowed the debt to fall by 30 percentage points of GDP over the last five years.

This, along with other economic reform measures, has put the country on an unmistakable path towards economic growth. It is not surprising the business and consumer confidence is up, and there is a great deal of investment interest.”

Economists have long characterised the purchase of luxury goods as a hallmark of conspicuous consumption and a signifier of an active and strong economy.

Reputable strategy consulting firm Bain & Company, in it’s 2015 luxury sector report, confirmed that despite political and economic fluctuations, the roughly trillion-euro luxury sector globally has seen spending triple since 2013, with the automobile sector representing approximately eight per cent of that overall growth.

The United Kingdom-based luxury sector alliance Walpole, commissioned independent firm Frontier Economics to produce a report on the overall contribution to the GDP from their sector.

The findings indicate that “high-end creative and cultural industries make a significant contribution to the British tourism and travel industries through the international appeal of luxury brands and experiences”.

The survey also found that the luxury goods sector makes a valuable contribution to employment, and the spillover effects created by the high-end industries benefit upstream suppliers — mostly other small and medium enterprises — develop skills, knowledge, as well as expertise and skills-based clusters. Here in Jamaica, the introduction of Porsche has created a buzz.

Some of it, though, has not been complimentary. For instance in December, as a convoy of the vehicles was being transported from the wharf by police escort, as is the local auto industry norm, some people took to social media, complaining that the vehicles were emblematic of something out of reach for most Jamaicans.

Yet, firms like Walpole note that an overall social increase in confidence comes with improvements in what is regarded as a niche sector, representing a limited demographic with heightened spending power.

This suggests that the benefits of the luxury sector extend far beyond the demographic that may be spending. Stewart’s business dealings reach far beyond the Porsche customer and he pointed out that, as in most sectors, this is one part of a bigger picture of prosperity.

“Naturally, Porsche is at the pinnacle of car brands and, like everything at the top end of a market attracts a select group of potential customers, yet is relevant to everyone regardless of their means or needs,” he said.

“Who, car lover or not, doesn’t want to see the best cars in the world every day? At our recent Revolution Auto Show, you only needed to see the excitement that the Audi R8 brought — it was unbelievable.

At ATL Automotive I’m proud to say that we’re not exclusive to any one group of people. Whether you’ve made it and are in the market for a luxurious sports car, a first-time buyer straight out of college looking for a pre-owned car, or business in a need of a quality pick-up, we have it. We have almost 10 different types of pickup — even one that costs less than $2 million new!..

So whether you’re in the market for a luxury vehicle like Porsche or not, I believe adding this kind of excitement is what dreams are made of. You have to be able to aspire to greatness and to being the best, irrespective of what stage of life you’re at today.”